


An Odd, New World

by bestillmyheart



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drabble, Gen, Rating May Change, Tags May Change, Warnings May Change, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 22:12:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13844079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestillmyheart/pseuds/bestillmyheart
Summary: Jubilation; even shortened, the word is a mouthful of a name, meant to mean happiness and meant to be a joy worthy of celebration.





	An Odd, New World

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully, I do these characters justice and create a plot well enough for them to thrive in. For now, this is only a drabble.

Jubilation; even shortened, the word is a mouthful of a name, meant to mean happiness and meant to be a joy worthy of celebration. 

 

 

But she hates the name; hates her life: her parents long gone with a wave of the hand, traveling from home to home, seen by no one though her titles ooze over foreign tongues - Jubilation, the orphan child; Jubilee, the black sheep; Jubes, the mall rat. Everyone talks, and though she's not conceited enough to believe every conversation is about her, she's heard enough to know that she's always been the best topic for gossip.

 

Parents dead, and without a relative in sight for the girl; she came to the orphanage at the tender age of four.

 

Small for her age and timid and deft with her fingers; the top three qualities no couple could want in a healthy child.

 

What a tragedy, so young with a future ahead of her and her grades are slipping away just as much as she does during the nighttime; but there, at least, she can just listen to the hum of the night and shed everything else.

 

Jubilation Lee, an effort of a human down the drain.

 

Throw in the little fireworks display she can shoot from her fingertips, and she's just a flat-out freak. 

 

Despite the rising amount of mutants, there's no room for them, not really. 

 

There's no room for her here.

 

So she slinks out, fifteen and on a mission and ready to breathe the air of freedom she's always been promised.

 

And it tastes so sweet, smells like diesel and desperation and the wrath of a thousand people but also like open space and opportunity and crisp joy, swells in her chest until tears threaten to blind her.

 

And it works for a little while, the feeling of owning herself again enough to keep her head from sinking underneath the choppy waters, keep her cautious and alert enough to escape most situations.

 

But then she meets him, and there's not just room to be herself; there's room to be herself and more.

 

Mister Sinister is his name, and he's not what she would be drawn to; there's nothing particularly remarkable other than his prominently different features: the grey-tone skin, the red-on-black eyes, the smile that creeps underneath the skin and swarms - but he's offering a home and a full stomach and paid work.

 

Jubilation Lee would know better, and does, but she considers and confides and listens more and more.

 

And then Jubilation Lee is gone; there's no foot-in-the-door to be had here, no mutant in a human world and human in the mutant world, so she picks and though the decision sits sour, the rewards sit heavy enough to lull her to sleep at night, rid of the pains.

 

There is no little orphan girl; no tragedy-in-the-making; no genetic disaster.

 

There's only a girl: fifteen, mutant, and capable of anything.

 

She has no name then, eradicates Jubilation Lee from her vernacular as she has the person behind them, lives on underneath his watchful eye, learns from him and his knowledge and trains to earn her keep, though there has been nothing ever withheld from her.

 

Time passes, and she is happily sixteen when she feels the first connection with a single atom, her powers growing, strengthening.

 

_Scintilla_ , he calls her one day, knowing eyes bright and eerie and too triumphant to sit well with her - because she knows that look now, sees it when she advances in her studies, thrives - but she relents; Mister Sinister provides, and has never failed thus far; a year and a half later and still she has never wanted for thing, never wanted to go back to whomever she once was.

 

But this freedom burns in her chest, aches in her throat like tears would, though instead all that comes forth is a huff of laughter and an automatic  _yes, sir_.

 

And so Scintilla she is, born anew.

 

And the name sparks a look of pride in him, rolls over his too-long tongue as if the name were very dear and fragile in his mouth and absolutely  _his_ ; and what would she hold from him, the jubilation of ownership, when she is, quite technically, his to be proud of - when the name had first been spoken from the chords of his throat; when she had been taken under his wing and proven worthy to bear his tutelage. 

 

This freedom weighs like the World on the broad shoulders of Atlas, pulls and wears her down, but it is freedom and life and steadily all she knows.

 

Nothing changes for another year, save her abilities; her sparks no longer the little firework shows in the darkness of an alley way, no longer the little stings of insignificant detonations; they are explosions at the sub-atomic level; the decimation of whatever she should so choose, a command of power.

 

Then, she meets  _him_.

**Author's Note:**

> It's implied that Remy LeBeau is the him mentioned at the end, as LeBeau works for Sinister as well and is the intended turning point in her life; in case anyone reading is wondering where he is.


End file.
